This blog is an exploration of principled problem solving which is an initiative at Guilford College encouraging a focus of people's abilities and experiences toward solving real-world problems under the guidance of the college’s core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship.

May 2012

05/22/2012

Hello from the Middle East! This summer I am doing my internship for the Principled Problem Solving Scholarship Program at the Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution/Transformation Center in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. That's really a mouthful, so I'll just refer to it as Wi'am for convenience's sake. That's what everyone here does anyways. In addition to my personal blog, which you can find here, I am writing this short article as an assignemtn for the 2011-12 PPS Program, which provided funding for my internship project and a wonderful year of academic and professional experience!

The most important thing I've learned so far in terms of cross-cultural problem solving is to never assume I completely understand anyone. What I mean is that the cultural differences here are so profound that even when conversing in the same language, I and another person could be talking about completely different things. For example, my main responsibility here so far has been revising documents. When I was revising Wi'am's 2011 narrative report, which was my first assignment, I read part of the description of the youth program here describing the peer mediation program to mean that young people were trained at Wi'am in peer mediation, then participate in programs at their schools, similar to such programs in the US. When I asked Zoughbi about another part of the document, he saw my revisions to that part and corrected me that the peer mediation program at Wi'am actually encourages youth to start their own programs, hold informal forums on conflict resolution, and make use of their personal networks. Woops. While it was just a minor mistake, this kind of misunderstanding could cause a very big problem elsewhere!

Another illustration of this is in the completely different approach that Wi'am's mediators take to conflict resolution. I attended one conflict resolution event, a kind of reconciliation ceremony which was completely different from anything I've ever seen in the US. It was at a secondary school where a teacher had somehow "shamed" a girl student. After the event, as Zoughbi put it, "she went to her wise brother for advice, who went to the crazy brother." The brother and a couple friends came to the school and actually beat the teacher, who ended up in the hospital, and subsequently the girl got kicked out of school. Mediators from Wi'am had already met with the parties and "resolved" the conflict. The ceremony in the picture to the right was just a formal process where the guilty party made a public apology to the teacher and the school's headmaster in front of the entire student body. This approach is focused on both parties not only coming to reconciliation, but also saving face in front of the community. Whereas in the US, we would consider a dispute like this to be very personal, between the teacher, the family, and certain representatives from the school. In this instance, the entire community was involved from the students, to the teachers, to the priest who came along to lead the students in morning prayers.

Raymond Cohen, a professor at the Hebrew Univserity of Jerusalem, supports the idea of never assuming understanding in his book on intercultural problem solving, Negotiating Across Cultures (1991, United States Institute of Peace Press). He notes that, "Cultural strangers can rely on no shared experience of family, church, schooling, community, and country. Their national histories, traditions and belief systems may or may not concur. When they comunicate there can be no guarantee that the meanings encoded by one and decoded by the other are at all related" (Cohen, 21). What he is saying, essentially, is that cultural differences, especially in the ways people have been socialized into society, can be such an obstacle to communication that the message expressed by one party will mean something completely different to the other. This means that especially in conflict resolution and problem solving, it is important to take things slowly, reject assumptions, and to build relationships with the parties involved, who can help interpret signals and symbols.

This said, I am doing my best to get out of my normal fast-paced, individualistic work style and take things slow, focusing on building relationships. The Wi'am Center is filled with internationals coming and going, so I am not always the only one speaking English. It is easier to navigate the city since Zoughbi's sons both speak fluent (basically perfect!) English and are easily accessible, as my apartment is on the top floor of their home. The view of Bethlehem from my balcony is stunning:

And I've even managed to attend some culturally familiar events, like this basketball game between part of the Palestinian national team and the local teachers at the American School of Jerusalem in Bethlehem:

For more on my experience living in Bethlehem and working at the Wi'am Center, please see my personal blog at http://thichnhattim.wordpress.com!! Thank you and mar'salam!

05/15/2012

This semester I have been working at Guilford Green Foundation (GGF) as an intern. Guilford Green Foundation started twenty-five years ago by a group of friends as a part of Dining For Friends (a fundraiser put on by Triad Health Project, an HIV and AIDS awareness and advocacygroup). GGF's mission is “to promote diversity and inclusiveness throughout the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) community and the greater Piedmont community by raising and distributing funds for LGBT organizations and programs and growing an endowment to sustain funding for these purposes”.In the past quarter of a century, GGF has grown from a small yearly fund to an endowed yearly giving fund. Each year they have a cycle of fundraising, then a cycle of grant giving that provides money for small groups and organizations to assist them advancing the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer (LGBTQ) community. One of these grants went to Guilford College's Guilford Pride student club to start the Bayard Rustin Center on campus.

My time at GGF has been very interesting. When I first heard about GGF, I had an image of a large organization staffed by several employees. I had heard about several of their fundraising events, such as Green Queen Bingo (a bingo event put on by drag queens) and their $5 letter campaign. These events gave me the impression of a group on the scale of other local LGBTQ groups such as Equality North Carolina, but when I got to work my first day, I was hugely surprised. Currently their office is about half the size of a Bryan suite located in the spaciously occupied Guilford Building at the corner of Elm and Washington Street downtown. Most of the time, there is only one person in the office, Shane Burton the executive director, and occasionally the special programs director, Ivan Cannada, will work from the office. It amazed me that such a small organization has such a strong presence in the community and has been able to do so much.

The more time I spent working in the office and on side projects, the more I was enlightened on just how they did this. For starters, Shane is a very passionate and dedicated director. He has had years of experience at Triad Health Project working as an assistant director, and he values interpersonal, genuine connections with donors as much as he values their potential for giving. Ivan, who had been interim director before becoming special projects director, has great ties within the community and understands how and where to best place the organization to make the most impact. With these two power leaders at the helm, sharing a lot of directional power, there is an equally dedicated board of directors making the ship run smoothly.

The board of directors makes the large decisions with recommendations from Shane but largely takes the pressure of big decisions off of the daily running of the foundation. With the goal of uniting community in mind, this organization, despite its relatively small size, is able to do just that through successful collective leadership. I think the small size of this organization helps prevent the foundation from straying from its true mission, unlike large organizations that run the risk of getting mired down in coalition politics (both from outside the organization and from the inside). Before any decision is made, the group is encouraged to consider how much it is truly uniting communities rather than simply serving the immediate needs of the organizations.

All in all I think the structure and function of GGF is very positive and has had a great impact on the local community, both LGBTQ and allies. Events such as Green Queen Bingo brings people from all walks of life, uniting communities across many identities. The challenges raised while working here give me a good point of reference for future jobs and queries during my journey in activism through non-profit organizations.

05/11/2012

Effective organizations are built by great leaders. Leaders of effective organizations must be passionate about their ideas and have the ability to motivate those who are part of the organization. When you have a leader or an authoritative person that is able to construct and organize well considered goals, and push their followers to believe in those goals they are able to get more out of their people. This is because great leaders set the standard and are able to hold all of their followers to that standard.

Throughout my life I have played and observed sports, and I have noticed that coaching a sports team is very similar to running an organization. A good example of this in the world of sports is Tim Tebow who was a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Tebow is considered by many to be less talented compared to other quarterbacks in the NFL. But his leadership abilities and passion for the game far surpasses anyone else. As a result of his passion and excitement of the game he was able to raise the level of performance of his teammates, help Denver become a winning team, and instill passion in the Denver fans.

Great leaders are also able to use their passion to communicate effectively with their followers. They must be capable of building the right type of relationships in order to motivate and succeed. Good leaders are able to establish effective personal relationships without being too close or friendly with them. If a leader becomes too close personally with their followers then feelings get in the way of a goal or objective. When this happens, expectations tend to be lowered because the feelings you have for a person can hide the faults of another follower.

Great leaders are also able to communicate their goal and vision effectively. Followers have to know where they’re going before they can get there. It is easier for followers to become motivated if they clearly understand the goal. It is important for leaders to constantly emphasize the goals and vision so the organization doesn’t lose focus. But at the same time, good leaders have to listen to everyone in order to understand their viewpoint. No one can be considered irrelevant because everyone has something to offer to an organization. Followers are more likely to be motivated and make an impact if they feel they are important to the organization.

The best leaders are able to build a good, smart team around them. Leaders are able to do this by understanding themselves and their strengths and weaknesses. Based on that self-evaluation, good leaders are able to place people around them that play off of those strengths and weaknesses in order to be most effective. It is also important for leaders to share leadership roles in order to get other people more involved. Letting others’ achieve goals and take credit for success boosts morale and improves motivation. The greatest leaders don’t tolerate anything but the best from their followers. This doesn’t mean they are perfectionists. It means they know and understand their follower’s abilities and demand they reach their full potential.

05/07/2012

Over the past semester my group and I spent numerous hours volunteering at the Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Public Library. This library is unique in that it has an environmental focus as an organization. The library provides the Greensboro community with educational resources in the form of environmental books, classes, and events to improve the public’s knowledge on environmental subjects. The library is located on Price Park, which is a 98 acre park that offers walking trials and events for the community. Because of this focus the library holds an Earth Day Event every April and our job as a team was to try to make the event itself as sustainable as possible. The organization has been successful in accomplishing their mission but throughout the process, challenges in the way that we interacted with the organization became apparent and showed the importance of communication to run an effective organization.

The seemingly simple skill and tool of being able to communicate became difficult as we dove into the internship. At the beginning, communication was going well and everyone involved seemed to be on the same page, but as we continued communication became difficult and there were periods were both our group and our contact at the library became frustrated and confused. The lack of communication led to a time in which our project as a whole had the possibility of completely failing.

Since then we reconnected communication and had a successful event but the uncertainty in the process added unneeded stress to both parties which could have been so easily avoided. This experience demonstrated to me how important communication is in running an effective organization or business. If an organization is able to have fluid communication from top to bottom in there hierarchy of power then they will be able to accomplish the most with the least amount of trouble. This flow of communication came all the way down to us as volunteer interns. Our group was busy with other projects as individuals and because of this the project at the library was not our first priority.

The next step in communication that did not seem as adequate communication between both parties was at the beginning when they gave us our mission for our project. At our first meeting at the library they told us that our goal was to make the Earth Day event as sustainable as possible but without much direction on how we were to accomplish this. The freedom that they gave us was good in that they were not a big brother constantly looking over our shoulder, but it meant that it was all on us to be involved in the organization and complete our task. The organization assumed that we would have complete focus on the mission, and as stated earlier, because it was not our first priority there was a disconnection between us. It showed that for an organization to be effective there have to be clear goals and dedication to those goals from everyone involved. The failure of that, in this internship, fell on our group.

The internship experience taught me valuable lessons in patience, timeliness, setting goals, and positivity. It became clear that even though individuals in organizations have their own schedules and are incredibly busy, as was our group, that if people take the time out to respond to others in a timely manner then a lot more could be accomplished. I have taken away that it is very important to put time aside and to be dedicated to a goal that you have with the organization even if they are not pressuring you with due dates or deadlines. Because of this, I feel that communication is the basis of organizations but is often overlooked.

05/03/2012

Being accepted to Former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative University (CGI U) was really the cherry on top of my collegiate career. Coming into college I wasn’t sure what I would do with my Business Management degree, but I knew I wanted to do some sort of “good” business. Last spring, that path was created for me after President Clinton’s speech at the Bryan Series. Being so inspired to take my personal strengths and translate them towards helping global issues welcomed me into the world of sustainability and green business. Never did I think, a year later, my efforts would land me a spot in CGI U.

Since President Clinton’s speech, I have engaged myself in independent studies, internships and have now launched a new program at Guilford to educate the community on how to lower their carbon footprint and how to live more sustainable lifestyles. Although I had a very successful year after President Clinton’s inspirational speech, getting accepted into CGI U still seemed unreal until I was actually there. I was ecstatic that my dream and goal had actually come true and all the hard work I put in resulted in a ticket to DC.

Upon my arrival I didn’t know what the weekend would bring, and honestly I felt quite unprepared. I had no idea how I was going to compare with students from Harvard and MIT University who had commitments to bring clean water to poor villages in Uganda and to set up nonprofits with software engineering students to provide free services. As soon as I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by CGI U signs posted on sides of buildings and around downtown DC.

The event consisted of multiple plenaries with different moderators and panels, all with a different theme. There were 4 plenaries for everyone to attend and the other two had multiple options students could chose to attend. The optional plenaries ranged in themes according to commitments students had made. Mine connected to sustainability and the triple bottom line. The diversity of the panel at every plenary was so carefully chosen that they all played a different part in our educational process. It was such an amazing experience to learn and connect with educational figures who had such diverse backgrounds and successes. The input of every leader gave the audience an essential key to each individual’s education. I keep touching on the word inspiration, but there is no other expression or word to describe all the emotions I felt over the weekend.

President Clinton presented us with so many celebrities and other national leaders that by the end of the weekend I was starting to believe that I too was famous. By being able to have such in depth, personal conversations with people like Madeleine Albright , Sadiqa Basiri Saleem and President Clinton himself made me feel connected, and I think this was exactly what President Clinton intended. By the end of the weekend I knew the reason behind CGI U, to find students who are personally making a difference just because they want to, put them in rooms together to find other students who had similar interests, and then give them inspiration and tools to "turn ideas into actions." It was great! Truly a once in a lifetime opportunity that will forever inspire me to do “good”. I only wish I had a few more years of college to begin more programs and/or work with students from other colleges on their programs/projects to set up more support for them. Learning about other students’ commitments and organizations’ missions made me want to get involved and bring the program to Guilford. Unfortunately, most every program is based on college campuses and they generate their support from their students. That is why when I returned to Guilford I couldn’t help but tell every underclassman about this opportunity and encourage them to get involved. Since I will not be able to bring more programs to Guilford, I hope that when I graduate I will find an outlet that will allow me to work closely with global issues and contribute to their mitigation.

05/02/2012

I think it is more than fair to declare our afterschool physics outreach program at Jefferson Elementary School throughout March a rousing success! Over a series of three once-a-week sessions, we were able to lead our group of 30 3rd to 5th graders through a diverse series of activities that touched on a wide swath of scientific topics, ranging from lasers to electronics, in a way that let them translate vocabulary into real-world, hands-on experiences. With the unwavering support of the Center for Principled Problem-Solving and Jefferson PTA, we introduced these students to a level of science many have never before experienced. Few things rival the satisfaction of an ecstatic elementary school student running up to you and enthusiastically exclaiming that she “gets to go home and tell [her] mom she got to play with lasers today!”

On the first of our sessions in March, the students were divided into small groups and challenged to construct stable bridges consisting of marshmallows and toothpicks between desks. This activity illustrated some basic engineering concepts, and forced students to cooperate to succeed. As each group progressed in their construction efforts we provided them with pennies to stack on their bridges as a measure of progress, and encouraged them to innovate in an effort to increase the total number of pennies their bridges could hold. The second week of activities saw the students attempting to align lasers in a way similar to our pilot program in November, but this time supplemented by a series of progressively more-difficult mini-challenges culminating in an attempt by each group to redirect their beam from one room into another. By repeatedly readjusting their mirror configurations to meet the new goals given to them, the students developed a series of unique and unexpected methods to control and direct the laser. For example, one group of students even attempted a kind of “ping-ponging” of the beam back and forth between desks to get it to the target. During the third session the students built series and parallel circuits with miniature light bulbs and buzzers, and attempted to construct on/off switches allowing them to transmit Morse code messages to one another. It was again fascinating to watch the students as they attempted to make sense of how the switches worked, and how they could incorporate them into their existing circuitry. Many of them succeeded and began teaching themselves how to efficiently send Morse code messages by switching their lights on and off. Some students even expressed interest after the conclusion of the program in finding out where they could purchase similar supplies, so they could continue their exploration efforts independently.

We hope to go back to Jefferson at some point in May to work with a smaller group of students on a series of activities designed to introduce them to computer programming. Using an MIT-developed program called Scratch, students will be able to see visually how computer programs are internally structured without any of the arcane syntax found in normal programming languages like Java. Depending on the reactions of the students in this smaller test group, this programming activity may be incorporated into a larger afterschool program at Jefferson next year. Overall, our time at Jefferson over the past nine months has been highly-enriching for not only the Jefferson students, but for all the Guilford physics students who participated as well. There is something both humbling and inspiring about seeing an elementary school student understand a concept you found difficult at the college level. The level at which these students have proven capable of doing hands-on science work, and understanding it, speaks strongly to the need for more real-world science efforts in our school system. The students of the Guilford physics department, and all those who support them, look forward to continuing to serve that need in whatever way they can.